Tension in RINL as staff protests against JSPL MoU

Employees’demands

• Scrap MoU with JSPL

• Merger of RINL with SAIL

• Provide jobs to displaced persons

• Implement 2017 wage revision

Visakhapatnam: Tension gripped Ukkunagaram, the township of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RIL)’s Visakhapatnam Steel Plant here on Tuesday with the major trade unions participating in a huge protest against the decision of the management to resume production at the Blast Furnace-3 by handing it over to Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL).

Describing it as a big scam, they said it is the first step to hand over RINL, a navratna company with headquarters in Visakhapatnam and an annual production capacity of 7.3 million tonne, to private hands on a golden platter.

Heavy police force was deployed near the administrative building to ward off any untoward incident. Barbed fencing was also done as the agitating employees squatted at the main gate and other areas raising slogans demanding withdrawal of the central government’s decision for strategic disinvestment of RINL and merger of the company with SAIL and asking the steel giant to run BF-3, according to AITUC national vice-president D Adinarayana told Bizz Buzz.

INTUC local unit president Neerukonda Ramachandra Rao and CITU president J Ayodha Ram, Adinarayana and others led the agitation at the administration building and demanded scrapping MoU with JSPL, merger of RINL with SAIL, provide jobs to displaced persons and implementation of 2017 wage revision on par with SAIL.

They alleged that denial of captive mines and working capital support from the government led to the shutdown of BF-3 from January, 2021 with a deliberate conspiracy to make RINL bankrupt.

RINL has three BFs each with a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes. The BF-3 was installed with an estimated cost of Rs 6,000 crore as part of its capacity augmentation plan. The company made an investment of nearly Rs 16,300 crore to increase the capacity from three to 7.3 million tonnes in phases.

RINL Chairman-cum-Managing Director Atul Bhatt recently said the MoU with JSPL was signed to ensure much needed working capital support for raw material for starting and operating BF-3. It is planned to blow-in on December 30 at a capacity of two lakh tonnes of hot metal per month. He said the arrangement with JSPL will ensure availability of about Rs 800 crore to Rs 900 crore for the company in the form of working capital advance/raw materials required for consistent operation of BF-3 against which RINL wants to supply 90,000 tonnes of blooms every month from Steel Melt Shop-2.

“This will enable RINL to generate additional revenue from increased sales of about one lakh tonnes of saleable steel even after supply of committed quantities to JSPL,” the management contended.

JSPL said the MoU with RINL will help release additional liquid steel for slab casting and onward rolling into hot rolled coils for its upcoming hot strip mill at Angul of Odisha. The unit is scheduled for commissioning shortly.

JSPL Managing Director Bimlendra Jha was quoted as saying after the deal “we extend wishes to the management of RINL for embarking on this partnership.” JSPL recently ramped up the production of its plant at Angul from 5.6 to 11.6 million tonnes per annum.